My wife and I never drink wine. Okay, maybe a glass every year or two. On past cruises we have tasted some red wine (Georges Duboeuf I believe) and we liked it.

We will be cruising with some cheapskates and they want to bring a few large bottles of wine on board the Carnival Victory and pay the corkage fee and drink at dinner.

Please give me your advice on which type of wine I should tell these cheapskates to buy (locally) so that we will be drinking good quality wine on the ship and so that it will be the same type of wine that is sold on the ship. (These people are into impressions and want people to think that they are buying the wine on the ship).

Anyway, all advice on wine types is appreciated.

I am a complete novice, so donít make fun of my post. All that I know is that my wife and I like red wine, not so keen on white wine. I really donít care what our friends like, and they only care that they are saving a ton of cash (even with the corkage fee factored in).

So, with that in mind, if you could also give an approximate cost that we should pay for this wine locally (not on the ship).

I think that Carnival has an abbreviated wine list in the Gifts section of their website. You could look through that and try to find the similar wines locally.

George Debouef bottles some excellent, moderately priced wines.

By the way - if your friends bring a gallon jug wine on board, it is not likely that anyone will think they bought it on board. The wines sold on board are in smaller (750ml) bottles, for the most part.

If you really want to break their chops, while they are going through the pretense of offering up this wine as having been obtained on board, make a point of telling them that you think it has turned and that it should be sent back. See how they react to that

I enjoy drinking a wine that is neither red or white. It's Beringer White Zinfandel. Carnival does carry this on their cruise ships. It runs around $6.00 to $7.00 a bottle here in Massachusetts. May not be expensive wine but almost all restaurants I go to serve it. I believe it's about $26.00 on the ship.

Beringer also makes a White Merlot and a White Cabernet that are also very nice.

You could also go to a liquor store and ask the salesclerk. Most of the time their right.